Our Mutual Friend is Charles Dickens' final masterpiece; completed in 1865, the year in which he survived the Staplehurst train crash. A well-drawn cast of unforgettable characters is set against the background of the River Thames, polluted by the greed for money and the quest for recognition by society. Pathos and comedy, cruel indifference and selfless love, passion and patience, generosity and cruelty - Good is contrasted with Evil as certainly as the cold winter waters of the tidal Thames at night contrasts with the summer pleasure of her upper reaches.
A large inheritance is left by a miser and refuse contractor: in one will - to his son, to guarantee his unhappiness by marriage to a hopefully selfish companion; in another will - to his employees, a generous and incorruptible couple; in a third will - to the state, offering opportunities for blackmail to the discoverer of the document.
Dickens also sets up, to be shot down, a clique of generally self-centred and self-opinionated members of London Society. To be accepted one has to own money - or seem to.
The Listener is rewarded with a plot that always surprises and always delights. The impoverished heroine wins the love of a young man spoilt by riches; the 'mendicant' hero wins, through one of the finest conspiracies in fiction, the love of another heroine. This is a story in which the characters are never allowed to return to paper, but stay with one always.
This is also a brilliant BBC adaptation, well worth the 2 DVD set
How to claim a part, and 'how it all works' here
To find a section to record, simply look at point 5. below at the sections. All the ones without names beside them are up for grabs. Click "Post reply" at the top left of the screen and tell us which section you'd like to read (include the blue number, please). Read points 6. to 8. below for what to do before, during and after your recording. If you would like to claim more than one chapter, that's great! I would prefer for this project that you choose no more than 2 consecutive chapters at a time.
Is there a deadline?
Target completion date of this project: February 2007, but try to send your recordings as soon as you can. If you cannot do your section, for whatever reason, just let me know and it'll go back to the pool. There's no shame in this; we're all volunteers and things happen.
Set your recording software to:
Bit Rate: 128 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz preferred, 32 and 22.5 also acceptable
DURING recording: Make sure you add this to the beginning and end of your recording: Start of recording (Intro)
"This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit: librivox DOT org"
If you wish, say: "Recording by [your name], [city, your blog, podcast, web address]"
Say: "Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens. [Book #, Chapter ##]"
End of recording
At the end of the chapter, say:
�End of [Chapter ##, Book #]"
At the end of each Book, say:
�End of [Chapter ##, Book #]. End of [Book #]"
At the end of the book (in this case, after the postscript), say (in addition): "End of Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens."
Please leave 5 seconds silence at the end of your recording, or 10 seconds for files longer than 30 minutes!
Also, please remember to check this thread frequently for updates!
AFTER recording: Save files as
128 kbps MP3
ourmutualfriend_bk#_##_dickens.mp3 (all lower-case) where ## is your chapter number. (ourmutualfriend_bk1_01_dickens.mp3)
ID3 V2 tags
(To find out more about ID3 tags, go to our wiki: http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/WhatIsID3)
Add the following tags to your .mp3 file (how you do this depends on which software you use � if you are unsure about ID3 tags, send me a message). Please mind upper and lower case!
Title: [Book number, two-digit Chapter number and title] -e.g. Book 1, Chapter 01 - On The Lookout
Artist: Charles Dickens
Album: Our Mutual Friend
Please ignore tags for Genre and Track Number - these will be filled in automatically at the cataloguing stage.
Transfer of files (completed recordings)
Files can either be posted here in the forum (link to your webspace) or emailed via http://yousendit.com to: e33mw at optusnet [dot] com [dot] au (if you use yousendit, it's helpful if you'll post the resulting link in this thread)
I'll need the following information from you when you submit a recording:
- your name as you want it to appear in the LibriVox catalog,
- your webpage URL (if applicable)
- the runtime of the recording in format hh:mm:ss
Any questions?
Please post below or PM me.
Last edited by opheliad on April 16th, 2007, 1:56 pm, edited 58 times in total.
Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.
Heeey! My barge is blocked!
Guess I'll have to sigh, I mean, sign up, but let it be for later chapters, till I can read soon after claiming.
Hey opheliad and David, you're more than welcome to keep files up here
ftp.studioae.com
LibriVox
L1br1V0x
but there's no uploader there, so one (or both) of you (using ftp) would need to usher files into place . . .
Oh, I'll hang back a bit. Maybe I can get caught up in the coming month and then come claim a chapter here.
(Oooo - my baby is taking shape, this is so exciting!!)
Right, calm again now
@David, I would be honoured for you to MC this project
@Anita, thank you for the offer of web space! I have none. Will the Mac OSX program Fugu do the trick of uploading? I assume that is the password in your post above, so I'll give it a go once I have a chapter ready.
@Caeristhiona - chapter 2's are all yours
Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.
opheliad wrote:@Anita, thank you for the offer of web space! I have none. Will the Mac OSX program Fugu do the trick of uploading? I assume that is the password in your post above, so I'll give it a go once I have a chapter ready.
It should work! Any ftp program should work. What I'm uncertain of is how you could direct it to a a specific folder there, say, a friend folder or mutualfriend folder.
I do hope you'll make chapters available for listening along the way. So many wonderful readers are signing up!
I don't know if it's possible for me to create a folder, or if the administrator of the site would need to do that..
...otherwise I will just make sure each file is labelled correctly so that they follow in alphabetical order. We'll see how it goes, and change how it's done if needed along the way.
Should have the first chapter up by the end of the week or early next week, all going well
Wherefore, be not weary in well-doing, for ye are laying the foundation of a great work. And out of small things proceedeth that which is great.
)